Tag Archives: faculty for tomorrow

During most of my adult life, I’ve felt called to help close the achievement gap that exists in our country. So I deferred medical school to teach middle school math and science in inner city Baltimore with Teach For America. During my 2 years of teaching, I found that while I loved my students and I loved teaching them algebra and life sciences, I felt called back into the field of medicine. I saw that the best way for me to close the achievement gap was to return to medicine to find ways to address the many social determinants of health that kept my students from success.

In medical school, I was the education director for the MedZou Student-Run Free Clinic. The clinic both teaches medical students the joys of primary care and provides health care to the uninsured. My time at MedZou not only inspired me to become a family physician but also gave me the opportunity to create new programs to teach medical students while providing quality care to those in need. It’s at this intersection—the intersection of helping those in need while also stimulating medical students to be future family doctors for the underserved—where I truly feel I am able to fulfill my calling to close the achievement gap in our country.

In residency, I worked in an urban underserved environment with a predominantly Spanish-speaking population. Our patients had many social issues, including homelessness, addiction, food instability—the list goes on. In a place of great need like Lawrence, MA, I was motivated by how much family medicine was valued there. My patients deserved doctors who are full-spectrum trained and committed to quality, access, and patient-centeredness. And that’s what they got.

One day I received an email from STFM about a task force that seemed awesome, but I did not want to apply. My initial thought was, “That seems great, but I am not qualified for that.” You see, I had only been back on faculty for a little over a year, and I wondered, “What do I have to contribute?” Well, in comes my work mother, also known as my department chair, who says, “Apply! You have lots to offer.” Fast forward to today. Guess who is serving on the Faculty for Tomorrow Taskforce—Moi!

The mission of the task force is to prepare faculty today for family medicine tomorrow—to reach those excellent clinical teachers from residency or community practice who have what it takes to shape the next generation of family medicine clinicians. Fantabulous mission, right?